Ask Lemmy

Since you mention stuff like "the video isn't important", "other services" (plural), I'd consider not just one alternative but several. The big problem with big name social media is that they provide a all-in-one experience that is designed for profit, and as such looks and acts worse than any of its independent parts (not to mention, the sum is artificially made more addictive to users).

• For publishing campaign materials itself, all you need is a filehost or filebin - something like pastebin.com but that allows you to upload and organize any kind of files. Any of the offerings in the FOSS market will do, but if you are going to focus on posting quickie (rich¡) text documents that are easy to build and parse I'd suggest a Markdown-based document bin like Hedgedoc.
• If your campaign is gonna run like a chat, XMPP / Jabber. There's servers like Prosody or ejabberd that are easy to set up.
• If your campaign is gonna run in web "play by post" mode, any modern web forum system will do, for example Discourse. Heck, even oldie-style web forums might do, like phpBB.
• Voice: Jabber has access to audio IIRC. I've also heard very good things about Mumble.

There's Revolt, if you're happy being on an empty platform that none of your friends will ever move to.

https://revolt.chat/ it is from UK and is GDPR compliant.

Matrix. But if you want something that looks and feels exactly like Discord, there is Revolt. It's FOSS.

https://revolt.chat/

I wrote a somewhat lengthy "Introduction to Matrix/Element" comment for someone here recently. If you arent paranoid, then you can ignore the sections about not using and removing the web client session after account creation. Let me know if you have any trouble.

The comment in question: https://discuss.tchncs.de/comment/16768943

To use element like discord (with servers and voice channels) you will create a Space(=discord-server) and then add Rooms(=discord-channels) to it.

Normal rooms are usually text only but you can still start a video call (doesnt have video on by default) inside one which all room members will get notified for.

To get something like voice channels you create a "video room" which people can then join and it acts like a voice channel that also has screen sharing and video functionality.

There is full permission management so you can give everyone in the space access to all rooms or use levels like guest/member/moderator/admin/owner etc or you make it invite only. Lots of options.

Matrix.

Jabber, a.k.a. XMPP. It's decentralized, featureful, standardized, and low on server resources.

Here's a user's guide I wrote.

https://contrapunctus.codeberg.page/the-quick-and-easy-guide-to-xmpp.html

I've never felt a desire to move off old-school IRC.

Matrix? I think you can setup text channels and also do voice/video/screen sharing in the channels as well if you’re using element, though I havn’t been able to convince my friends to jump ship yet, so don’t know how it compares to discord

https://spacebar.chat/

Internet Relay Chat

a technology handed down to use from the ancients.

I think Element/Matrix could do the trick

At least that's what I intend to do with some friends for our gaming sessions and daily mindless chat

You know, I'm gonna be the oddball suggestion here.

Forums. What forums? I don't know, the last time I used them was proboards back in 2010 so I'm sure I'm out of the loop on the options, but I do miss forums sometimes. That was where I ran RPGs, back in the day.

If you want a different level of shitty platform, You could just move to a VTT like Roll20.

I mean, our friend group still uses IRC. Go back to the roots, discord is merely a fancy IRC anyway. Quakenet is still up and running, working as smoothly as ever! (So at least one netsplit* a day... :D)

During the pandemic, discord has been a lifeline for me and I did not find alternatives that had a specific feature that may appear irrelevant but that I found deeply comforting: When people are hanging out in a vocal channel, you can see them. It was not much, but it was the closest we had to going to university and seeing groups of friends just chilling together.

There are many other platforms for text and vocal chats, but this is a feature I am still looking for.

Prove me wrong !

ZULIP